Introduction

Roosevelt Island collects garbage from its 12,000 inhabitants via pneumatic tubes with an “Automated Vacuum Collection System,” or AVAC. There are no garbage bags on the sidewalks and no garbage trucks. A computer empties trash chutes several times a day, sending the refuse of 16 residential towers through underground pipes to a transfer station at the north end of the island. On arrival it is compacted, sealed into containers, and hauled away to join the rest of New York City’s waste. The system is maintained and operated by a staff of engineers, machinists, a high pressure plant tender and an oiler.

Since the AVAC system was installed thirty-five years ago it has offered cleaner, quieter, and safer neighborhood streets. Today this strategy is even more compelling in its ability to integrate recycling and reduce citywide emissions and traffic congestion. Roosevelt Island was redeveloped in the early 1970s as a model for the future, but in this case no other US city has followed its lead, and even in New York the underground trash network is almost unknown.

A look at Roosevelt Island’s sanitation reframes our relationship to service infrastructure, and asks us to reconsider what we expect of development. What if we radically changed the way we move garbage through the city? Does the vacuum collection approach present a viable alternative to conventional garbage trucks? More fundamentally, what can the history of a community designed around progressive policies and technologies teach us about how we choose our infrastructure?